Laughter has long been hailed as the best medicine and local theatre company Tinderbox are dishing out giggles by the spoonful.

With support from the Organisations Emergency Programme, every week from now until 5th February, Tinderbox will deliver online dance, creative writing, music, physical theatre, mental health and laughter yoga workshops on a Pay-What-You-Can basis. While over on their YouTube channel each week they will create brand new comic content, free to enjoy from the comfort of your living room.

Our cultural partner in France, Centre Culturel Irlandais has commissioned 40 artists from the island of Ireland to address the world with their impassioned reflections on the times we live in. The 'Addressing the Nations' project has created an online platform for four evenings of presentations (20 & 21, 27 & 28 January), with ten artists each evening. The launch night featured high-profile Northern Ireland artists, Dylan Quinn, Rita Duffy, Alice McCullough and Adrian Dunbar, with Amanda Coogan and Gail McConnell appearing on Thursday's programme. Jan Carson and Joy Gerrard feature today, 27th January.

The Ulster Orchestra has released a new recording, 'Our Songs, Our Place', which features nine songs by local songwriters developed through the Orchestra's Your Song Now project.  Composer and arranger Paul Campbell approached the Ulster Orchestra in April 2020 with the idea for a project that sought to curate a musical response to the first COVID-19 lockdown. This became the Your Song Now project, which invited songwriters at any stage of their career to submit a song that spoke to their life and experience of the lockdown. Nine songwriters were selected to work with mentors Duke Special, Kitt Philippa and Paul Campbell, culminating in an album that crosses genres and generations. 'Our Songs, Our Place' is available digitally from all major online retailers and in CD format from the Ulster Orchestra. 

The Arts Council has rounded up just some of the fantastic creative activities and performances you can enjoy online, most of which are funded by the Arts Council, the Dept for Communities and the National Lottery.

New highlights include: 
Source Photographic Review celebrate their new issue - Issue 103 - 'Life Stories' - with an online launch on Thursday 4th Feb, 6.30pm.
Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin present their IMBOLC International Arts Festival online (5th February to 19th March) with a line-up of events including music, spoken word, workshops, films, poetry, photography & more. 
Big Telly Theatre Company present 'A Recipe For Disaster', a piece of online cookalong theatre on 29th & 30th January. 

Future Screens NI has launched its new mentoring programme 'The Future Foundation', which has been developed to support individuals or groups of artists and other creative freelancers within the broad arts and cultural sector in NI. The programme will help artists and creative freelancers develop new approaches to working in the Creative Industries; this will include mentoring in career and practice development, practical skills and advice on personal planning, identifying and applying for funding, and the acquisition of new practical and technical skills for working in post-COVID-19 environments. The first phase of this programme is to recruit and train a mentoring bank of 15 Mentors. Mentor training will be delivered in March. Application deadline: 12 noon, Thursday 11th February 2021.

Void Gallery is working in partnership with intern and artist facilitator, Zoe McSparron, in the creation of its new Youth Programme, aimed at persons aged 14-20 years. The programme will create an encouraging and creative space where participants will explore their personal and collective creativity. While developing their individual creativity, members will also engage in innovative research, experimentation, and create work in response to Void's ambitious exhibitions programme. The emphasis on this youth group will not only be about enjoying art; it will also be about gaining experience on a professional level. if you are interested in the creative arts and are aged 14-20 Void would be grateful if you could complete an expression of interest survey that you can find on its website.

Belfast Exposed presents its second Street View exhibition, which features two projects by artist Tristan Poyser: 'The Invisible In-between: An Englishman's Search For The Irish Border' and 'Masked: a Portrait of Amazon'. The exhibition explores political, cultural and social issues at a time of great uncertainty. Street View is a large digital window display with audio narratives, which showcases contemporary art work by internationally-renowned and local emerging photographers to an external audience on the streets of Belfast's Cathedral Quarter. This exhibition continues until 27th February.

BRILLIANT is a commissioning scheme aimed at encouraging anyone (aged 18 or older) to suggest their brightest idea for an artwork as part of the Lumiere 2021 programme. Artichoke (producer of Lumiere) is committed to developing creative talents and voices from a range of backgrounds and is particularly keen to hear from Black People and People of Colour, as well as d/Deaf and Disabled individuals who are currently under-represented in Artichoke's BRILLIANT Alumni. Deadline for applications is 9am Thursday 11th February 2021

The Arts Collaboration Network, which is an informal network of the main sector support organisations and a number of creative hubs across Northern Ireland, last week issued 5 key requests for the First and Deputy First Ministers, the NI Executive and Department for Communities to ensure the sector can make its contribution in 2021 and beyond: 

• Building the sector's infrastructure, capacity and skills to meet society's emerging needs;
• Invest to sustain and develop the workforce of artists, creatives and other highly skilled roles that form the foundation of NI's creative ecology;
• The NI Executive and the Public Health Agency to engage with the arts and culture sector regarding reopening venues, cultural spaces, and cultural activity;
• A commitment to increasing the Arts Council of NI's annual budget year on year, beginning in 2021-22, to support the ongoing stabilisation and renewal of the sector;
• An Integrated Arts and Culture Strategy co-created with an NI Cultural Taskforce.

Keep up to date with the latest Coronavirus updates from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, including a list of potential funding sources which might be helpful to artists and arts organisations at this time. We will update this list as we go along. 

If you know of any other sources, please contact us at and we will share with the sector.